There has been a general opinion that Ben Stokes should have been picked in the World Cup team of England.
Stokes, who had risen as a superstar on England’s Ashes tour to Australia, went down the pecking order last summer after a cluster of low scores against Sri Lanka and India.
However, just because of the way Stokes had batted in Australia last time around, he was in the frame for the World Cup, but, the English selectors decided that they should make the selection on the basis of recent performances of the players and thus, the all rounder missed out.
According to some of the former players, the reason behind Stokes’ failure especially in One Day Internationals was him batting low down the order. He is a shot maker and not somebody who just slogs cross batted. If he had been made to bat higher, he perhaps would have provided better returns to the team than he did.
In the games that Stokes played versus India, he batted at 7, sometimes even at 8 and that was certainly a few positions too down for him. So, what the former players are saying, that might be true.
Anyone who saw Stokes batting the other day in the Big Bash League for the Melbourne Renegades would definitely think that the 23-year old was hard done by the national selectors.
Stokes is currently smashing them in BBL there in Australia and the English selectors might be wondering somewhere if they made the right call or if they would have been better off going with the highly talented Durham guy who can be quite useful bowling seam up as well.
It remains to be seen how the players who have been preferred ahead of Stokes for the World Cup go in the next two months.